Marijuana Use and Life Insurance

Recreational Marijuana Use or Prescription Marijuana Use and Life Insurance

Can you get life insurance if you use marijuana? The answer is, YES, life insurance is available for marijuana users with or without a prescription. In other words, recreational marijuana users can obtain life insurance without having to hide their usage. Occasional marijuana users, even recreational pot smokers, or those who smoke a joint, or hit the occasional bong, can qualify at a PREFERRED rate class. So the question then becomes, what is the key to getting the best rates on life insurance with marijuana?

Marijuana use and life insurance

What is the key to getting a preferred rate class when using marijuana?

There really is no catch. The key to obtaining the best life insurance premium is knowing which marijuana friendly life insurance company to choose. That might ring painfully true to those who have already been declined for life insurance due to marijuana use.

The First Step to obtaining life insurance for marijuana users

The first step is being straightforward with your life insurance agent and letting them know you do use marijuana. Life insurance companies do check for marijuana. The last thing you want is to not disclose your marijuana use and pop positive on a life insurance exam. They test for marijuana for life insurance. Not divulging your use could jeopardize your chances of getting the best rate class in addition to putting the life insurance company on alert that you may have not disclosed other important information.

Next…

From there, you will need to determine how often you partake of marijuana or cannabis to know what rate class you can expect to receive from the various life insurance carriers who underwrite marijuana users. Unfortunately, life insurance companies do not currently differentiate between smoking marijuana (think joint, bong, spliff, blunt, gravity bong, etc…) using a varporizer or ingesting marijuana (think tinctures, brownies, cookies, frosting, etc…). Hopefully in the near future marijuana friendly life insurance companies will begin to rate various users differently depending on how they consume marijuana.

What is the reason for taking medical marijuana?

When applying for life insurance while using marijuana a carrier will consider one important factor if you are being prescribed the drug. The main factor to consider for those clients with prescriptions for medical marijuana will be the underlying reason for taking marijuana as a prescription. Obviously, there is a big difference between taking medical marijuana for glaucoma compared to taking medical marijuana for cancer.

So in summary, the following questions will need to be answered in order for us to place you with the most suitable marijuana friendly life insurance company:

Is your marijuana use for recreational or medicinal purposes?

If medicinal, what is the underlying health condition and severity of the condition being treated?

How often do you use marijuana?

What is your method of use, i.e. smoked, ingested, inhaled, etc…

The Rate Classes Marijuana Users Can Qualify For

One of the most frequently asked questions we get is how does marijuana affect life insurance rates. If you only use marijuana a couple times a year than you can qualify at a preferred best rate class. Currently, the companies offering a preferred best rate class are very strict about that 2 times a year rule.

If you are an occasional user (not defined) you can qualify at a preferred rate class as long as your urine comes back negative for traces of THC. The life insurance carrier figures that if your urine shows the presence of THC than you are not an occasional user. Typical estimates for how long marijuana can be detected are around 13 days, but there are reports of some people having came back positive for marijuana as far out as 90 days, so be careful!

If you use marijuana only twice a month then you can receive a standard plus rate class. You will need to list your use on the application because life insurance applications ask about drug use, i.e. marijuana. And as mentioned above, life insurance companies do test for marijuana.

If you use marijuana once a week you can still receive a standard rate class. However, if you use daily, then chances are you will receive a tobacco rate class even if you do not smoke marijuana but only use a vaporizer or ingest it.

TermLife2Go Can Shop Your Marijuana Life Insurance Approval!

One thing important to point out is that you should apply with a life insurance agency that can shop your approval. What I mean is, make sure the company you are applying with can switch life insurance companies if necessary to ensure that you will be getting the best possible offer on life insurance with marijuana. TermLife2Go can take your life insurance approval and shop it with other marijuana friendly life insurance companies if the original carrier we placed you with does not come back at a favorable rate class. This is a BIG deal because it can literally save you a huge amount of time and money.

Here is a real life example. We had a client admit to marijuana use on his life insurance application. However, he failed to mention it in our initial interview. As a result, the company we placed him with came back at a tobacco rate class. But when we discovered that he only used once in the last year we placed him with another company that had more liberal guidelines for marijuana use. The new company offered him a preferred rate class. There was a difference in premium of more than 500% for a preferred rate class compared to a tobacco rate he was offered.

Now most companies will simply try and get you to take the original policy and tell you to try again in a year once the agent has made their commission. However, that is not how we do things at TermLife2Go. We guide our clients throughout the process with the goal of finding the best company at the best price.

If I Admit Drug Use Can I Be Prosecuted?

The life insurance companies are governed by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). HIPAA rules and regulations prevent the life insurance companies from divulging your information. Further, life insurance companies want clients to be honest so setting a precedent of telling on their clients would make business dry up fast. Therefore, you can sleep easy knowing your personal drug use history will go no further than the eyes of the life insurance carrier underwriter.

Changing Landscape.

The landscape for marijuana use and life insurance in the United States is changing. Two states have legalized the use of recreational marijuana: Colorado (January 1, 2014) and Washington (July 7, 2014). And the following states, along with Washington D.C., allow Marijuana use for medicinal purposes: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. source

With 23 states and D.C. legalizing medical marijuana it is not a stretch to believe that the current restrictions on obtaining life insurance for marijuana users will continue to be loosened. It is hard to imagine that the life insurance underwriting criteria for marijuana users will not change significantly as more and more states adopt marijuana friendly laws. As new companies come on the scene and as the current crop of companies loosen their standards, TermLife2Go will be right there offering the most cutting edge life insurance products for marijuana users.

Alternatives

An alternative to admitting drug use would be to consider lying on the life insurance application. However, lying on a life insurance application is fraud. It is better to just admit you are looking for life insurance with a pre existing condition. Because if you commit fraud on a life insurance application, and the life insurance carrier finds out, the carrier will not pay the death benefit. That is a high price to pay (no pun intended) for not being straightforward with a life insurance company about your marijuana use.

Another alternative would be to stop using marijuana before applying for life insurance. If you have only used marijuana a couple times (no more than 2) in the last year then you can receive a preferred best rate class, assuming you have no other pre-existing health conditions or take prescription medications that might cause you to get a lower rate class.

How About After I Obtain Life Insurance?

Once you have a life insurance policy in place you can do what you want. The life insurance policy is based on who you were when you took out the policy. The life insurance is not affected by any dangerous hobbies that you engage in, any health problems that arise or any drug use you partake in AFTER the life insurance policy is put in place. Therefore, if you use marijuana after you get a life insurance policy you are in the clear. Just know that a life insurance company will investigate the past history of a client to determine if the client was truly being straightforward and honest on his or her life insurance application.

About TermLife2Go:

TermLife2Go is not a call center, nor are we interested in pushing a sale. We’re looking for lifetime customers that will recommend their friends and family to us which is why we place customer satisfaction above all else. If you found this article on obtaining life insurance with marijuana use helpful, please give us a shot at earning your business.

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4 Responses to "Marijuana Use and Life Insurance"

By roxie September 15, 2014 - 7:32 am

In other words, if there is a medical reason someone is smoking marijuana some insurance companies will provide good rates as long as applicant has a current marijuana card. What about a prescription for oxycodone 30mg/240 every 30 days, and opana (not sure about mg) but 60 every 30 days? Am I better of getting a Guarantee Issue for my daughter’s father given the circumstances?….or a whole life product? He has a eye disease that has caused blindness in one eye which is why he’s so medicated…not sure how much this justifies large amounts of narcotics, but after 15 years and beginning with vicodin he has developed a tolerance. He is now 46, hgt 5’10 and wgt 215.

A Guaranteed issue life insurance policy would certainly be the easiest route to take when it comes to getting your daughter’s father life insurance. The main down side however, would be that in general, a guaranteed life insurance policy will cost more that a simplified or fully underwritten policy and it will contain what is call a “graded death benefit” clause.

A graded death benefit clause within a life insurance policy will state that for a certain period of time once the life insurance policy goes in force, the guaranteed life insurance policy will not cover the insured for natural causes of death! It is only after the insured has had their policy in force for maybe 2 or 3 years before it will begin to cover the insured for “natural causes” of death.

For this reason and this reason alone, it is usually best to try to first find a simplified or fully underwritten life insurance policy first, and then if none are available, move on to a guaranteed issue policy as a last resort (preferably one that has a short graded death benefit period).

We’d be happy to go over all of your options with you, just give us a call at 866-760-8740.

By Joe June 8, 2014 - 9:36 pm

It will usually depend on your frequency of use. Now, the insurance carriers may also request a copy of your medical records if you have been prescribed a medical marijuana state ID card (state dependent) since they would also typically be interested in the underlying medical cause for such a prescription. If your use is simply for recreational purposes, medical records will generally not be requested.

Either way, you should just give us a call when you have a chance so we can really nail down your best options for you.